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Powderfinger
Powderfinger
has emerged as one of Australia's most popular radio-friendly rock bands,
part of a generation of significant Australian rock to come out of Brisbane
in the wake of the Bjelke-Peterson "deep north" era when a lot of
youth culture was suppressed. It didn't happen straight away, but when it
did, it produced music the rest of Australia embraced.
Powderfinger
grew out of a three-piece band, taking their name from a Neil Young song in
1990 with the addition of two members, including singer/guitarist Bernard
Fanning. They cut their musical teeth performing cover versions of classics
by Neil Young, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Steppenwolf and
Rodriguez. In the beginning, the group promoted their own gigs, posted
their own flyers, and then put their earnings into 1,500 copies of a
self-titled EP. The second EP 'Transfusion' was highlighted by 'Reap What
You Sow', a song featuring harmonies and showing off Fanning's soulful
voice - a taste of things to come.
The band
was signed to Polydor Records and their major label debut album 'Parables
for Wooden Ears' followed in August 1994.
Produced by Tony Cohen (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Cruel Sea) this
album emphasised the band's heavier side. A Top Ten seller in their home
state, the album launched Powderfinger nationally, thanks also to a bout of
constant touring.
After a
creative hibernation and two CD EP's, recording started for the second
album, the breakthrough 'Double Allergic', which revealed a significant shift
towards accessible rock songs rooted in melodic grooves. Powderfinger's
reason to be is to create songs strong enough for the band and audience to
play and hear months or years down the line. The singles 'Pick You Up' and
'DAF' (which stands for the first three chords of the song) picked up
strong airplay support. The album went straight to the top ten in September
1996, sold double platinum, spent half a year in the Top 30 and earned the
group a string of ARIA nominations including album of the year.
It meant
that Powderfinger didn't get around to recording the third album until two
years later when they walked into the studio with 30-40 songs and came out
five weeks later with 'Internationalist'. This album entered the charts at
Number One, and was still charting a year later when, this time
Powderfinger won its ARIA awards nominations. Another two years on,
September 2000's 'Odyssey No.5' gave them their second No.1 album in the
row, and at the start of the New Millennium Powderfinger were arguably Australia's
"top" band. Sales in excess of 400,000 confirmed their place on
top.
A flurry
of Powderfinger releases, 'These Days' (live) and 'Fingerprint' (Best of)
preceded the November 2005 release of Bernard Fanning's country rock solo
album 'Tea and Sympathy', a national No.1 album selling four times
platinum.
Powderfinger
had decided to take a break and didn't reassemble until February 2006 when
they reassembled to write the songs for a new band album, this time taking
a different approach to the songwriting by initially writing songs in
groups of two or three rather than the entire band to avoid some band
members dominating the process. The other objective was to get as far away
from the 'Tea And Sympathy' songs as possible.
The
resulting songs were taken to Los Angeles, where they were produced by Rob
Schnapf, known for his work with Beck's early albums. The title of the
album 'Dream Days At The Hotel Existence' was inspired by the Paul Aster
book 'Brooklyn Follies' Bernard Fanning was reading during the sessions. In
May 2007, on the threshold of the album's release controversy surrounded
one of the songs, 'Black Tears' over its apparent reference to an
aboriginal custody in death on Palm Island in Queensland in December 2006.
A trial relating to that incident was due and it was suggested the song
might prejudice proceedings. Powderfinger made last-minute changes to the
lyric to avoid legal action holding up the album's release.
In
August 2007 Powerfinger embarked on a nationwide tour with Silverchair titled
the Across the Great Divide tour, starting in Silverchair's hometown
Newcastle and Powderfinger's Brisbane a couple of days later. The tour
embraced 34 concerts in 26 towns lasted over two months with an estimated
220,000 people in attendance and aimed to promote the efforts of
Reconciliation Australia, a foundation helping to improve the welfare of
the indigenous Australians. A DVD featuring the Melbourne concert and a 90
minute documentary was released in December.
The
band’s seventh studio album ‘Golden Rule’ was recorded in Byron Bay over a
six month period. The plan was Powderfinger back to its essence. They’d
experimented with the sound, tried different things with the songwriting
process and recorded in America with different producers. ‘Golden Rule’ was
recorded at home, the band reunited with American Nick DiDea, who had has
previously worked with the band during the “classic” era, producing
‘Internationalist’, ‘Odyssey Number 5’ and ‘Vulture Street’. They also
wrote the songs as a team, with Bernard responsible for the bulk of the
lyrics. The album was recorded in the same spirit, as close to the live
sound as a studio album could be. ‘Golden Rule’ reached the No.1 spot
nationally, the fifth studio album in a row to reach the top.
On
April 9 2010 Powderfinger announced
that they would be disbanding following the completion of a farewell
tour in October. In the prepared statement, the band advised that
“the “Sunsets” tour will be Powderfinger's last ever run of shows. We have
decided, after much deliberation and agonising, that after this final tour
we will call it a day as a recording and touring band. With the
completion of our last album, ‘Golden Rule’, we feel that we have said all
that we want to say as a musical group. We firmly believe that it is
our most complete and satisfying album and can't think of a better way to
farewell our fans than with music that we all believe in and also with,
hopefully, our best tour to date”.
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